Elementary school teachers' attitudes towards multilingualism and language policy: Tatarstan, Russia
Abstract
The dissertation adopts a transdisciplinary approach to study schools as sites of language policy implementation. Contributions of language policy, TESOL and multilingual education, and linguistic anthropology help understand the role of teachers in language education. Of particular interests are teachers’ attitudes towards multilingualism and language policies, namely, the learning and teaching of national (Russian), titular (Tatar) and foreign (English) languages, as well as teachers’ negotiation of language policies in school. Federal, regional and school policy documents, 25 teacher interviews and site observations from a Tatar-medium school (1), a Russian-medium school (2) and a school with intensive English language program (3) in Tatarstan, Russia, were included in the analysis. Analysis showed that teachers’ attitudes towards multilingualism are not uniform across languages. They were consistently favorable towards Tatar in School 1 and varied in School 2 and 3, with the former showing most ambiguity and hostility towards Tatar language. Attitudes towards Russian were scarce and consistent across all schools suggesting the ongoing dominant status of the language in schools and society. Attitudes towards English were mostly supportive due to economic, employment and global benefits of English proficiency. Teacher attitudes’ towards language policy showed that teachers are most compliant and supportive of their school policies and have varied, contradictory or ambivalent opinions about federal and regional language policies. Lastly, teachers comment substantially on the role of parents in language education. However, teachers who already formulated positive or negative opinions towards a language, used parents’ views as another argument to support their existing ideas.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
de Oliveira, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Education Policy|Education|Language
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.